Dark Ages Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 12 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga

by Matthew McFarland

  DARK AGES

  VENTRUE

  Twelfth of the Dark Ages Clan Novels

  By Matthew McFarland

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Dark Ages Ventrue is a product of White Wolf Publishing.

  White Wolf is a subsidiary of Paradox Interactive.

  Copyright © 2004 by White Wolf Publishing.

  First Printing June 2004

  Crossroad Press Edition published in Agreement with Paradox Interactive

  LICENSE NOTES

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  Table of Contents

  What Has Come Before

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Epilogue

  What Has Come Before

  It is the year 1232, and decades of warfare and intrigue continue among the living and the dead. The Teutonic Knights and Sword-Brothers have embarked on campaigns to conquer and convert pagan Prussia and Livonia, spreading the crusading zeal into new lands. Bloodshed has, as always, followed in its wake.

  Away from the eyes of the living, in the shadowy world of the undead, these crusades have dark echoes. The powerful Saxon vampire Jürgen of Magdeburg shares the Teutons’ zeal and leads the so-called Brotherhood of the Black Cross, a secret order within both the Teutonic Knights and Livonian Sword-Brothers. He is determined to expand his domain into Livonia, using the banner of Christianity to increase his holdings. Last year he sent his guest-cum-rival Alexander to lead the conquest on his behalf, but that mighty vampire fell before the vampiric chieftain Qarakh, who leads a band of pagan blood-drinkers in alliance with Deverra, a blood sorceress and unliving priestess of the pagan god Telyavel. Qarakh’s might in battle and Deverra’s witchery together brought ancient Alexander low. To eliminate the threat of Deverra, Jürgen turned to Jervais bani Tremere, a blood sorcerer of ill repute.

  Now only the Gangrel chieftain, strengthened by Alexander’s stolen blood, remains between Jürgen and the conquest of Livonia. But Jürgen’s heart weighs heavy at this time of potential victory, for Alexander was more than a political rival, he was betrothed to Rosamund of Islington, an ambassador of the Toreador clan. Rosamund and Jürgen have circled each other for years now, mutual affection, predatory desire, and even courtly love mixing into a heady brew. Can he find victory in Livonia and finally take Rosamund to be his own?

  Prologue

  Magdeburg, AD 988

  The young man hadn’t been afraid at first when his captors led him into the room, but when he saw the blood on the floor, he blanched. Blood on the battlefield was one thing, and indeed his ears were still ringing, his head still pounding from the chaos. But here, inside, far from where men met with swords and fury, here he wasn’t expecting it.

  He actually stood there in the doorway until the man behind him shoved him. They chained him to the wall, but didn’t bother saying a word. They left, and he stood, shackles around his wrists and ankles, staring at the stain on the floor. It was old, but obviously blood. The stain was nearly two feet long—it looked as though someone had smeared blood across the floor with a cloth, as though trying to daub the stone to a more pleasing hue.

  The man started. Footsteps approached the door. Someone paused outside to speak with the guards, but they spoke too low for the young man to understand. He wondered who his captor was, and why he was a prisoner. He was a noble, and should therefore be given courtesy as befit his birth. His father, he knew, wouldn’t stand for this. He was certain that the battle was won by now, and that his father would be preparing to find and rescue him, or at least negotiate for his release. He was plucking up his courage to order his captor to move him to better conditions when Lord Jürgen of Swabia stepped into the room.

  The man had never seen Jürgen before, but had heard stories. He’d heard that Jürgen was nine feet tall and commanded an army of demons. He’d heard that Jürgen meant to cover the world in blood and the wreckage of anything he came across. He’d heard that Jürgen made sport of anything of woman born, and that looking at Jürgen’s eyes meant death for any Christian. The man shrouded in shadows before him looked nothing like a demon, only a man; tall and imposing to be sure, and certainly with bearing enough to be nobility, but only a man for all that. The young man relaxed a little. If Jürgen was truly a noble, he would be reasonable. He would treat his prisoners well.

  Jürgen took a step closer, into the light, and the young man gasped. His captor was covered in blood from neck to toes. His hands were stained crimson and his hair, probably fair blond when clean, shone waxy and amber in the torchlight. “Your father is dead,” he said flatly. “He fell on the battlefield.”

  The man stammered. He imagined Jürge
n must be lying—his father didn’t ride into battle with his men anymore. Jürgen continued. “Yes, he stayed away from the battlefield, like an old man or a coward. Or both. Nonetheless, he is dead. A man who does not intend to fight should not take the field at all, and should certainly watch his flanks if he does.” Jürgen craned his neck to the side and the young man winced at the hideous popping sound. “I am tired, boy. You are heir to your father’s lands. I am taking those lands from him—from you. Your men will fight me because they assume you are still alive, and I do not know what they will do if I kill you. I have no wish to do so, in any case.” He removed his shirt and snapped his fingers. One of the guards handed him a tunic. Before he put it on, the young man could see his body, muscled and smooth, nearly unmarred by scars.

  “All I want to know is this: How many men did your father command? And where are they?”

  The man stammered again. Jürgen sighed, turned his back, and took a drink from a skin. “It’s not difficult, boy. Just tell me, so I can find his men and finish what began on the battlefield.”

  The man finally found his voice. “Tell you where they are… so you can kill them? Why would I…?”

  Jürgen’s brow furrowed and he leaned over to look the man in the eyes. “I have men enough to people your father’s lands. I have no need of the men who worked them before, and certainly no need of men loyal to the former lord. If you tell me, I shall let you live and even allow you to dwell in your father’s lands, though not in his home, of course.”

  “Let me… live?” The man had not considered this an issue. Jürgen’s gaze did not falter.

  “All men die, noble born or not.” He drew a dagger from his belt and pushed the tip into the man’s palm, drawing blood. “All men bleed, all men feel pain. Had the God who granted us the wisdom to rule also granted us immunity from iron and pain, I would have taken it as a divine mandate that I should keep to my own lands. As it is, we are all flesh, and since you are no less flesh than I, and since you cannot stop me, I shall take your lands.” The boy’s mouth fell open as he tried to decide if his captor was speaking madness, blasphemy, or both.

  Jürgen merely sighed. “You truly are a child. Now tell me what I want to know.”

  “No. I mean, I—” The boy realized his mistake as soon as the first word left his lips. Jürgen beckoned to the servant behind him, and the boy found his right hand jerked forward and held like a pup pulling at a leash. Jürgen brought the blade of his knife down across the back of the boy’s hand with a flick of his wrist. Blood welled up around the blade as it chipped the bone. The man screamed in pain; Jürgen covered his mouth with a bloodstained hand and locked eyes with him.

  “No?” Jürgen twisted the knife. The boy began to weep, but stopped screaming, and Jürgen uncovered his mouth. “No? I didn’t offer you a choice. Tell me what I want to know, and I will let you live. I did not say that I would kill you if you didn’t tell me, because you will tell me. Immediately. If you do not tell me, I will let you live anyway, but I promise you that the condition your body will be in will offer you no kind of life suitable for a man.” He pulled the knife out in one quick jerk and wiped the blood and bone from the blade before the man’s eyes. He said nothing further.

  The young man, however, had much to say.

  Later, as one of the guards was walking home, a pair of men approached him. One of the men reminded the guard strangely of Jürgen; perhaps it was his posture or the angle of his features, but something in the man’s bearing was similar. The second man never came close enough to the guard’s torch to be seen, but the guard could see well enough to know that he had dark hair and wore black. The first man looked at the guard’s eyes, and everything in the guard’s mind suddenly belonged to the man. The guard stumbled on, confused, violated.

  The two Cainites walked on, talking of Jürgen.

  “He’s perfect, but not for your cause. Surely you must see that, Lasombra.”

  The dark one gritted his teeth. “I have asked you, repeatedly, not to call me that. My lineage is none of my doing, Hardestadt.” Hardestadt offered a curt nod, but both men knew that he would forget. “And as for Jürgen’s suitability to my—God’s—work, I admit that his zeal is, as of now, unfettered by any kind of morality.”

  “So you will give up any claim of progeny?”

  “Let me finish. Where you see a man unsuited to do God’s work, I see an unfinished blade of the finest steel, a man simply waiting for someone to add the Word of the Lord to his already admirable drive.” The man smiled, and the starlight itself recoiled. “He is perfect for me. Exactly what I wanted. He could be everything I should have been from the start.”

  Hardestadt shook his head. “Gotzon, I think I’ve been remarkably patient with you on this matter. But I mean to have Jürgen as my childe, and since your vow precludes you from—” He had not finished the sentence when Gotzon let out a fierce hiss.

  “I have other gifts, Patrician. And for all you know of me, I have seen you. I know you. I have watched from faraway shadows as you committed acts against your road and God, and I know of the parties who would most enjoy burning you slowly for what you have done.”

  Hardestadt bristled. “No worse, I daresay, than the horrors you have wrought on the world.” His hand crept towards his blade.

  “Stop,” said Gotzon, but he had already half-drawn his own sword. “I’ve already said I won’t fight you over this.”

  “And if the fight begins, will you flee?” Hardestadt locked eyes with the Lasombra, and the moonlight stopped to watch them. Gotzon opened his eyes a fraction wider, and allowed Hardestadt to see what lay behind them for an instant.

  Hardestadt took a step back. He had not backed down from a foe in a century, perhaps more. But then, he had never actually seen Hell. “My God,” he choked.

  “You see, Hardestadt? The horrors that I loosed upon the world never left me. I called them up at the behest of my clan and my mentors. I learned all I could of the Abyss. One word from me could blot out the sun. That is what I carry with me.”

  Hardestadt struggled for words, but only managed to find the strength to sheathe his sword. “Damn you,” he said finally.

  Gotzon laughed, and the moon cringed. “I have been damned for many years. But that’s not the point. The point is, we can’t come to blows over this. Then no one wins.” He stopped. “I have a thought. I concede that, even as your childe, Lord Jürgen stands to do God and His Word great service. Do you concede that, even as my childe, he might do much for your… rather worldly causes, even incidentally?”

  Hardestadt nodded cautiously. “I also think, though,” he ventured, “that he would chafe under your strictures. His time as a conqueror has taught him that, while the meek might someday inherit the Earth, the strong live comfortably in the meantime. I think that he would either wind up an apostate from your Road of Heaven, or a worse tyrant than he would ever become as a Scion of the Road of Kings.”

  “Well, then, we’ll let the man himself decide. We’ll offer him the choice—God or glory, the cross or the crown. We’ll see what kind of man Lord Jürgen truly is.”

  Hardestadt smiled. “And you truly think he’ll choose your way? The rewards of virtue are largely spiritual. A great number of our kind feel that means that they might as well not exist at all.”

  Gotzon smiled sadly and held up a palm. His shadow, which stood out despite the low light, did likewise, but with the opposite hand. “The rewards of virtue are spiritual, as are the fruits of sin, Scion. And both are very real.”

  Chapter One

  Parchment, Jürgen mused, was more precious a thing than blood. Rumor had it that the Tzimisce he had fought in Transylvania used the skins of their enemies to that purpose. Brutal, he thought, but assuredly much less expensive. He sat in his great oak chair, staring at a table nearly covered in parchment, and tried to guess at the value of what lay before him. He couldn’t, but then he wasn’t a merchant.

  Jervais bani Tremere sat on the other s
ide of the table, trying unsuccessfully to fit his huge bulk into the chair beneath him. Jürgen considered sending for a larger one, but decided against it. He was prepared to make adjustments for certain of his servants, but Jervais wasn’t one of them. In truth, he had been half hoping that the magician would meet his death in Livonia. But then, if Jervais hadn’t returned, he reflected, he would not have nearly the intelligence on the area that he did now.

  Jervais finally made himself comfortable enough to begin his report. He unfurled a large map of Livonia, marked in several places with red symbols that Jürgen recognized as crude representations of the crest of Clan Tremere. He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. If those symbols indicated victory for Jervais, they really should have been marked with the Ventrue clan crest, or at least Jürgen’s own personal seal, given that Jervais was there under Jürgen’s authority. Jervais, for his part, either did not notice or simply did not acknowledge Jürgen’s displeasure and began his report.

  “The situation in Livonia is still chaotic at best, my lord, and seems unlikely to change.” He pointed at one of the symbols. “Here, according to Wigand, is where Alexander fell. You have heard enough stories of that battle, I assume? The bog opening beneath his feet and all?”

  Jürgen nodded. “I have. Go on.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The sorcerer ran a finger over the map, attempting to find something in particular. Hopefully he has some good news for me, thought Jürgen.

  “Here,” Jervais said, indicating another of the symbols, “is the village of Auce. Though small, the people there are hale and healthy, and have proven good soldiers against the pagans.”

  “The Sword-Brothers continue into Livonia, then, just as the Teutonic Knights do God’s work in Prussia?”

  Jervais smirked a bit; doubtless he thought Jürgen was attempting irony with his last statement. “Just so, my lord.”

  Jürgen pretended not to notice. “Auce, eh? Very well, go on.”